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Assuming the Globe wouldn't object to this cut-&-paste, I attach an article from today's issue regarding a plan to purchase acreage near Baxter State Park. Focus seems to center on hunting & fishing.
I don't know if hunting and fishing are considered "backcountry pursuits" or if the mention of this article constitutes politicization of the board, but it certainly seems to touch on our beloved Maine woods. Asking forebearance on the moderators' part and restraint by the posters, I submit this for your information.
For my part, I notice the continuing sea-change in how the north woods are being viewed by owners and users and how difficult it must have been for Percival Baxter to set BSP aside without hunting or fishing rights in a community born & bred with guns & rods in hand.
===============================================
Hunters in Maine object to forest plan
By Jenna Russell, Globe Staff | April 9, 2006
MILLINOCKET, Maine -- In the vast north woods of Maine, hunters and hikers have stalked moose and marveled at Mount Katahdin for more than a century. The forests they explored were owned by paper companies, but in longstanding neighborly tradition, the land was kept open to the public. To many who spent time there, the deep woods felt familiar -- almost like something that belonged to them.
Now, some say that easy sense of belonging is threatened. Paper companies are selling off their land; developers recently announced plans to build 975 houses around Moosehead Lake. In the midst of growing fear about the future of the north woods, a current proposal for the state to buy 6,000 wild acres from a private owner for $14 million and add it to Baxter State Park, protecting it from future development, might have seemed like a sure bet. Instead, the plan has kindled fierce debate, revealing deep rifts between the state's hunters and snowmobilers, who say protection from development should not mean loss of their right to use the land, and other conservationists who envision an undisturbed wilderness.
Lawmakers must act quickly on the proposed land acquisition, before the current legislative session ends this week. No one is certain if a compromise agreement that would allow hunting on part of the property, hammered out in weeks of work sessions, will succeed in bridging deep-seated differences between rural traditionalists who defend the rights of hunters and preservation purists who believe any hunting would dishonor the park's founder.
''The way the landscape of the north forest is going, we can no longer assume this remarkable place is going to be there for us to buy the next time," said Sam Hodder of The Trust for Public Land, the conservation group that negotiated the proposed land deal. ''People have figured out the value of putting up houses by these lakes and mountains. This is our moment."
If successful, the land purchase would complete the vision of the park's founder, former Maine governor Percival Baxter. Located just east of the park's existing border, the parcel now available includes Katahdin Lake, a remote, scenic pool 3 miles from the base of Mount Katahdin. Baxter, who pieced together the 200,000-acre preserve over three decades, first targeted the lake for protection 85 years ago.
The small, unspoiled lake lies far from any roads, but can be reached from a 3 1/2-mile walking trail that starts near the main parking lot in Baxter State Park. Its isolated, visually striking location near the foot of the 5,268-foot mountain riveted American artists, including Frederic Church and Marsden Hartley, who immortalized the spot in landscape paintings. Hunters also trekked to the area, staying at rustic log cabins built there in the late 1800s.
''Katahdin Lake Camps," read an advertisement for the deep-woods destination published in 1901. ''This is where Mrs. H. E. Moore of Boston killed a fine bull moose and a large bear in October 1900."
Hunting remains a strong part of the Maine economy, even as it has declined in other parts of the country. More than 200,000 hunters are licensed each year in the state -- a number that has been stable for almost a decade -- generating $330 million in retail sales, according to state wildlife officials.
But some hunters say their traditions are under siege by state officials and wealthy conservationists who want to turn the north woods into an untouchable nature preserve.
Just south of Baxter State Park in Millinocket, the proud but economically battered ''gateway to Katahdin," hunters said the loss of access to the land around Katahdin Lake would mean the loss of their traditions, in a region already hard-hit by painful losses of jobs and population.
''Hunting and fishing is part of our life, it's the way we were born and brought up, and now wilderness advocates want to lock up the land," said Jim Busque, a town council member in Millinocket. ''They say it's just a small piece, but piece by piece it's being taken away. . . . Whenever we compromise, we lose something, and that irks people here."
State officials acknowledge that hunting grounds in southern Maine have been lost in recent years, the result of increased postings by owners and development that has cleared acres of woods. But access in the north woods is basically unchanged, said David Soucy, director of the state Bureau of Parks and Lands.
In the north, anxiety about access has been driven by the unpopular decision of one landowner to close her 50,000 acres to hunters and vehicles. Roxanne Quimby, the wealthy cofounder of the Burt's Bees skin product company, is despised by many Mainers for her land management policies.
Quimby has been called a modern-day Percival Baxter, for the former Maine governor shared her philosophy. Baxter, who purchased the lands for the park with his own money and then gave them to the state, envisioned the property as a place closed to hunting, where ''the wild life of the woods will find refuge from their pursuers," he said in a 1921 speech.
His views, unusual for the time, provoked controversy, and threatened to derail the state's 1955 acceptance of the parklands, said Howard Whitcomb, a historian who recently studied Baxter's papers for the citizens' group Friends of Baxter State Park. In a compromise hammered out by legislators, about one-quarter of the park, or roughly 52,500 acres, were kept open to hunters and trappers. Moose cannot be hunted in the park.
A similar compromise has been proposed for the Katahdin Lake parcel. Members of the Legislature's Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry last week recommended splitting the 6,000 acres into two sections and allowing hunting in the 2,000-acre northern parcel, which would be managed separately.
The plan, which has been criticized by both hunters and wildlife advocates, must win two-thirds approval in both the House and Senate to move forward.
As part of the compromise, the state would purchase other land for hunters to replace those areas lost to them in the park expansion.
Fund-raisers for the Katahdin Lake acquisition, who face a July deadline, said the inclusion of hunting might make it harder to raise the $14 million purchase price. But if it saves the deal, Hodder said, he hopes the compromise will prevail.
Jenna Russell can be reached at [email protected].
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...unters_in_maine_object_to_forest_plan?mode=PF
I don't know if hunting and fishing are considered "backcountry pursuits" or if the mention of this article constitutes politicization of the board, but it certainly seems to touch on our beloved Maine woods. Asking forebearance on the moderators' part and restraint by the posters, I submit this for your information.
For my part, I notice the continuing sea-change in how the north woods are being viewed by owners and users and how difficult it must have been for Percival Baxter to set BSP aside without hunting or fishing rights in a community born & bred with guns & rods in hand.
===============================================
Hunters in Maine object to forest plan
By Jenna Russell, Globe Staff | April 9, 2006
MILLINOCKET, Maine -- In the vast north woods of Maine, hunters and hikers have stalked moose and marveled at Mount Katahdin for more than a century. The forests they explored were owned by paper companies, but in longstanding neighborly tradition, the land was kept open to the public. To many who spent time there, the deep woods felt familiar -- almost like something that belonged to them.
Now, some say that easy sense of belonging is threatened. Paper companies are selling off their land; developers recently announced plans to build 975 houses around Moosehead Lake. In the midst of growing fear about the future of the north woods, a current proposal for the state to buy 6,000 wild acres from a private owner for $14 million and add it to Baxter State Park, protecting it from future development, might have seemed like a sure bet. Instead, the plan has kindled fierce debate, revealing deep rifts between the state's hunters and snowmobilers, who say protection from development should not mean loss of their right to use the land, and other conservationists who envision an undisturbed wilderness.
Lawmakers must act quickly on the proposed land acquisition, before the current legislative session ends this week. No one is certain if a compromise agreement that would allow hunting on part of the property, hammered out in weeks of work sessions, will succeed in bridging deep-seated differences between rural traditionalists who defend the rights of hunters and preservation purists who believe any hunting would dishonor the park's founder.
''The way the landscape of the north forest is going, we can no longer assume this remarkable place is going to be there for us to buy the next time," said Sam Hodder of The Trust for Public Land, the conservation group that negotiated the proposed land deal. ''People have figured out the value of putting up houses by these lakes and mountains. This is our moment."
If successful, the land purchase would complete the vision of the park's founder, former Maine governor Percival Baxter. Located just east of the park's existing border, the parcel now available includes Katahdin Lake, a remote, scenic pool 3 miles from the base of Mount Katahdin. Baxter, who pieced together the 200,000-acre preserve over three decades, first targeted the lake for protection 85 years ago.
The small, unspoiled lake lies far from any roads, but can be reached from a 3 1/2-mile walking trail that starts near the main parking lot in Baxter State Park. Its isolated, visually striking location near the foot of the 5,268-foot mountain riveted American artists, including Frederic Church and Marsden Hartley, who immortalized the spot in landscape paintings. Hunters also trekked to the area, staying at rustic log cabins built there in the late 1800s.
''Katahdin Lake Camps," read an advertisement for the deep-woods destination published in 1901. ''This is where Mrs. H. E. Moore of Boston killed a fine bull moose and a large bear in October 1900."
Hunting remains a strong part of the Maine economy, even as it has declined in other parts of the country. More than 200,000 hunters are licensed each year in the state -- a number that has been stable for almost a decade -- generating $330 million in retail sales, according to state wildlife officials.
But some hunters say their traditions are under siege by state officials and wealthy conservationists who want to turn the north woods into an untouchable nature preserve.
Just south of Baxter State Park in Millinocket, the proud but economically battered ''gateway to Katahdin," hunters said the loss of access to the land around Katahdin Lake would mean the loss of their traditions, in a region already hard-hit by painful losses of jobs and population.
''Hunting and fishing is part of our life, it's the way we were born and brought up, and now wilderness advocates want to lock up the land," said Jim Busque, a town council member in Millinocket. ''They say it's just a small piece, but piece by piece it's being taken away. . . . Whenever we compromise, we lose something, and that irks people here."
State officials acknowledge that hunting grounds in southern Maine have been lost in recent years, the result of increased postings by owners and development that has cleared acres of woods. But access in the north woods is basically unchanged, said David Soucy, director of the state Bureau of Parks and Lands.
In the north, anxiety about access has been driven by the unpopular decision of one landowner to close her 50,000 acres to hunters and vehicles. Roxanne Quimby, the wealthy cofounder of the Burt's Bees skin product company, is despised by many Mainers for her land management policies.
Quimby has been called a modern-day Percival Baxter, for the former Maine governor shared her philosophy. Baxter, who purchased the lands for the park with his own money and then gave them to the state, envisioned the property as a place closed to hunting, where ''the wild life of the woods will find refuge from their pursuers," he said in a 1921 speech.
His views, unusual for the time, provoked controversy, and threatened to derail the state's 1955 acceptance of the parklands, said Howard Whitcomb, a historian who recently studied Baxter's papers for the citizens' group Friends of Baxter State Park. In a compromise hammered out by legislators, about one-quarter of the park, or roughly 52,500 acres, were kept open to hunters and trappers. Moose cannot be hunted in the park.
A similar compromise has been proposed for the Katahdin Lake parcel. Members of the Legislature's Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry last week recommended splitting the 6,000 acres into two sections and allowing hunting in the 2,000-acre northern parcel, which would be managed separately.
The plan, which has been criticized by both hunters and wildlife advocates, must win two-thirds approval in both the House and Senate to move forward.
As part of the compromise, the state would purchase other land for hunters to replace those areas lost to them in the park expansion.
Fund-raisers for the Katahdin Lake acquisition, who face a July deadline, said the inclusion of hunting might make it harder to raise the $14 million purchase price. But if it saves the deal, Hodder said, he hopes the compromise will prevail.
Jenna Russell can be reached at [email protected].
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...unters_in_maine_object_to_forest_plan?mode=PF
